Daughters of Fire

Viv took another sip of wine. ‘It sounds like a conspiracy! So you think I should meet her? Would I like her?’ She was still apprehensive.

Cathy hesitated for only a second. ‘She’s quite a character. I think you’d get on. And meeting would do no harm, Viv. Who knows? It might be a huge success. Why don’t I ring her, or has Maddie done it already? Yes, the more I think about it, the more I think it would be a fantastic idea. OK, so writing this drama is one thing you can do to earn some money. What else?’

Viv thought. ‘Well, there is the book of course, but that’s not going to make me a fortune. Otherwise not much. I work in a small world, Cathy. Hugh could pretty much scupper me. All he needs to do is put the word round that I’m trouble or unreliable or a useless historian and no department would look at me.’ Putting down her glass she slipped off the sofa onto the floor and reaching up for a cushion, wedged it behind her head. ‘I can’t believe this has happened, Cathy! I can’t believe just reading an article can turn him into an enemy like this!’ Purring, the large tabby cat which had been watching the proceedings from the arm of the sofa leaped heavily into her lap and settled down.

Cathy eyed him fondly. ‘Pablo knows success when he sees it. He is giving you his seal of approval.’

‘Soft old thing.’ Viv scratched the cat’s ears.

‘Surely there’s more to this than just an article.’ Cathy raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure you haven’t antagonised Hugh in some other way?’

Viv shrugged. ‘I suppose I might have, inadvertently.’ She had been so pleased for her parents when they had left Britain. Envied them their new exciting life, had even been out to see them twice. That was the problem. They never stopped trying to persuade her to follow them down under, but how could she? Her career, her interests, and her obsessions were all tied to the world of the Ancient Celts. Hugh had understood. They had been close, then. It was her fault she had fallen in love with him; and it had been her decision to erect a barrier between them.

‘We used to get on well,’ she said wistfully, ‘but if I’m honest we haven’t for a while now.’ She didn’t elaborate. ‘And the trouble is, I’m going to be so vulnerable. If Hugh reviews this book he will trash it. He and his cronies in the academic world will rubbish everything I’ve said. And if he doesn’t review it everyone will want to know why. Either way I’m sunk.’

‘Then you’ll have to fight him.’ Cathy grinned amiably. ‘Come on, lady, where is that feisty female who stormed in here just now spitting nails? And you know as well as I do,’ she added, ‘being completely cynical about it, that the more controversial the book is, the more you two row in public, the better it will sell. When are you going to give me a copy, by the way?’ With a rueful laugh she slipped down onto the floor to be on the same level as her guest and topped up both their glasses once more. Pablo stood up, stretched and stepped carefully across the table to sit instead on his mistress’s knee. ‘So, remind me. Why is this book so controversial?’ she went on. ‘What is so shocking about it that it has wound him up like this?’

Apart from the facts that weren’t facts, you mean. The details I have tried so hard to weed out which shouldn’t be there because they are not part of the historical record. The ‘fictional twaddle’ which Hugh had spotted at once! Viv didn’t say it. Instead she shook her head adamantly. ‘The only shocking thing is that I have had the temerity to finish it ahead of the book Hugh is writing himself!’

‘Yours is about Cartimandua and the Celtic tribe called the Brigantes, right?’

‘And it turns out that Hugh’s is about Venutios. Her husband!’ Viv scowled. ‘Two different views on Iron Age Britain around the time of the Roman invasion in AD 43.’

‘But surely,’ Cathy took a sip of wine thoughtfully, ‘that shouldn’t matter, should it? Won’t people be interested in the two different stories?’

‘You’d think so.’ Viv sniffed. ‘And they are very different.’ That much at least she would admit. ‘I’m coming from a woman’s point of view, writing about a controversial queen. The antithesis of Boudica. A gutsy, clever Celtic queen, yes, but she cosied up to the Romans and because of that she is – was – regarded by many, including her husband, as a traitor. A quisling.’

‘Ah.’ Cathy eased the purring cat into a more comfortable position on her knees. ‘And Hugh takes the opposite position to you.’

‘In everything. He is writing about a man who is regarded as a patriot because he opposed Rome, and about war and military tactics and stuff like that.’

‘I still don’t see why that should matter. Surely both points of view are valid?’

‘In a rational world, yes.’ Viv grabbed the bottle of wine and poured herself a refill. She stood up and walked over to the window. ‘I’ve blown it. He used to respect me. He was impressed by my research. He encouraged me to do my first TV show. We used to get on so well.’ She heard the wistful note in her own voice and frowned, despising herself for it. He used to like me. That was what she had been going to say. And I used to like him. A lot. Why was she so angry that he had seen through her? Had she really expected him not to react to that article? And when – or if – he read the book, had she really thought he would give it his seal of approval? She took another swig from the glass. ‘He’s jealous, of course.’

‘Of your success?’

‘Yes. Of my success. He hates it that I’ve appeared on TV more than he has. And that they’ve profiled me in the Sunday Times magazine with the article based on my book. And that I’m going to be in another programme – a discussion programme on Channel 4 –’ She broke off abruptly and glanced at her bag, lying on the coffee table. The box with the two-thousand-year-old brooch inside it was in there, lying in the bottom somewhere amongst the litter of her possessions. She hadn’t taken it out since she had thrown it into the bag; hadn’t been able to believe what she had done.

‘You have to stand up to him, Viv.’ Cathy was quietly insistent as she sat stroking the sleeping cat. ‘You can’t go on letting him get to you like this.’

‘No.’ Viv turned back to the window. ‘No, I know I can’t. I’m just not sure what I’m going to do about it. I have a copy of the book for you, Cathy, of course I have. Signed and everything. You must read it and tell me what you think.’

III

Pat Hebden was sitting slumped on the arm of the sofa in the living room of her small Victorian house in Battersea, staring into space, her mobile still in her hand. David Roach, her agent, had called her with the news as soon as he heard it. ‘I’m so sorry, Pat. I thought it was in the bag. It was so you, darling.’

The woman who had got the TV part was fifteen years her junior. ‘But I’m the right age, David. I have the experience. The part was me.’

‘I know, darling. I can’t believe it either.’ He had a slight American intonation. Fake. She knew he hailed from the East End of London. ‘But we’ll find the right part for you. It’s out there somewhere. It will just take a little bit longer.’ Ever pragmatic – and anodyne. She could hear the shrug. And the unspoken words: very few parts for women your age, darling. Unless you’re a character actress and the public know you. You’ve spread yourself too thin, that’s the problem. Too many irons in the fire.

She was still sitting staring into space five minutes later, disappointment washing through every fibre of her body. With a groan she stood up at last. Damn it, she wasn’t that old. Mid-fifties. Could pass for forty. Or less. With make-up. A lot of make-up. She chuckled wryly. Who was she kidding? They were right. She’d have been lousy in the part.

As she reached for her mobile again her eye fell on the notepad on the table, half hidden under yesterday’s Guardian. Pulling it out, she stared down at it. Cartimandua, it said. Queen. Romans. Celts. Viv Lloyd Rees. Play? Docu-drama? Ring Maddie Corston!!!

The way Maddie had described the story there was melodrama. Romance. War. A strong story. Commissioned. Overdue. A writer with huge talent but who had never written for radio before and was in need of a strong guiding hand. And maybe a female lead.

Glancing up, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and frowned. Fantastic voice. Good face. Golden hair. Well, greyish with expert highlights! Just the right height – five foot five – well, perhaps five foot four if she forgot to stand up straight. Excellent cheekbones. Unconsciously she tilted her head slightly. She used reading glasses now, she had to admit, but that didn’t matter for in her head she had ceased to see herself as an actress. Now she was an academic. A mentor. The calm, skilled hand on the rudder which would bring a play first to the radio, then, who knows, to the TV. Big Screen? Stage? Maddie had hinted at an inexperienced and vulnerable author and a background of academic rancour. War behind the scenes. Perfect publicity. In the mirror the face she was scanning smiled. Ever optimistic, the defeat was forgotten. Ahead was a new scheme. A scheme she could get her teeth into. And one that involved a trip to Edinburgh.

Outside it was a glorious summer day, though you wouldn’t guess it from here. The cherry trees which lined the narrow road were in full leaf and the air had a faint trace of freshness in it; a strong breeze from Battersea Park and the river beyond it, cutting through traffic fumes and the blankets of diesel which spewed down from the low-flying aircraft shaking the house every couple of minutes on their way to Heathrow. She glanced round the small narrow rectangular room which comprised virtually the whole of the ground floor area of her tiny house. Light seeped fitfully through the heavy lace curtains she kept constantly drawn across the front window to keep prying eyes out. The room looked tired and dusty. She ran a finger over the table ruefully and examined the ensuing faint line with a sigh. She was between cleaning ladies at the moment. She was always between cleaning ladies. She had caught the last one shooting up in her kitchen. Shame. She had been a nice, bright girl. Trustworthy, or so she had thought. On the slippery slope, so it turned out, from the third year of a degree course in modern languages to, no doubt, a horrible death under a bridge somewhere. Two days after the girl had gone the house had been done over. Pat sighed. She knew it was Sarah because of the things taken. Not the treasures which would have hurt so much. Not even her grandmother’s gold bracelet which she had left so carelessly on the table in her bedroom. Just the electronic stuff which could be replaced. The cash from the kitchen cupboard and the silver candlesticks which she and Sarah had agreed were really rather vulgar.

She had changed the locks now, finally made up her mind to install security bars over the front windows, and acknowledged a huge reluctance to become involved with yet another personality who would bring their problems to her door while vaguely pushing her vacuum up and down and flicking the dust from one surface to watch it settle on another. What she really wanted was to leave London for a bit.

‘Maddie?’ She had picked up the phone, almost without being aware of the fact. ‘I’ve given your suggestion some thought and I’d love to come and discuss it.’

2

I

Next morning, Viv found herself pacing up and down her living room thinking about the brooch. She had hidden it in the back of a drawer in her desk when she came in the night before, tucking it well out of sight.

She had to give it back. She couldn’t keep it. She shivered. She didn’t want to keep it. But how was she to return it without admitting what she had done?

The overnight rain had blown away and watery sunlight pooled across the rugs on the floor warming her as she came to a halt, arms folded, staring out of the window across the rooftops. She loved this view; being part of the historic heart of the City, so near the castle. It was for this that she tolerated the narrow twisting flights of stairs, the stone landings, the need to park her car so far away, the walk back up the steep hill in the evenings to the small alleyway off the Lawnmarket, her arms full of books, her shoulder weighted by the strap of her computer case. She had set up her desk on the far side of the room, knowing that if she sat in front of the window she would do no work, lost in dreams amongst the grey slates, the chimneys, the odd spot of colour from a flower pot on a window sill or rooftop oasis, the torn rags of smoke, the wheeling birds settling, sleeping, rising again into the air.

Behind her, her desk was neat. Tidy. The rejected manuscript of the play stacked carefully. The textbooks back on their shelves. The box files neatly lined up on the floor. In front of her the sky was the colour of a Canaletto lagoon.

The book itself was finished. Edited. Printed. Jacketed. There was a box full of copies on the floor beside the bentwood rocker near the door into the kitchen. She ought to be feeling content. Excited. Satisfied. One project complete, another on the drawing board. Instead she was on edge, worried. And guilty. Guilty about her research methods and guilty about the pin and worried about having to collaborate on the play. Collaboration was not something she was eager to contemplate. Especially not if it involved confessing her research methods to someone else.

But then the play was not going to work without help.

She gave a deep sigh. She had a thousand things to do, all the things which had been put on hold as she coped with lecturing, tutoring her students and writing a 231-page book – plus ten pages of notes and bibliography followed by two major articles, one for the Sunday Times and one for the History Magazine, to say nothing of marking the end of year papers for her first-and second-year students. She needed to buy some shoes; she needed to have her hair cut – she ran her fingers through the wild untidy red mop. She needed to sort out her finances, and now on top of all that she needed to start this bloody rewrite, so why was she standing, almost paralysed with uncertainty, staring out of the window?

The answer came as a whisper in the corner of her mind. The voice, the increasingly powerful voice she had been fighting for the last few months had come back, echoing to her over unimaginable distances. She felt an uneasy shiver tiptoe down her spine. She had been so sure it would go away once the book was finished. But it hadn’t. If anything it was more insistent than ever. And now it was beginning to frighten her.

The sound of her doorbell distracted her from her thoughts. There was one good thing about living on the top floor of a six-storey tenement house. No one was going to arrive without a good reason for being there.

Opening the door she found herself face to face with Steve Steadman, one of her post-graduate students. Calm, reliable, and universally popular in the department he was, she had to admit, at the moment, also one of her favourite people. He was a good-looking man in his early thirties, tall and sturdy, with a thatch of fair hair and a weathered, ruddy skin liberally sprinkled with freckles. He was also one of the very few people of her acquaintance who wasn’t completely out of breath after climbing the stairs to her front door.

‘Hi, Viv.’ He was holding a copy of Cartimandua, Queen of the North. ‘I hope you don’t mind me dropping by, but I wondered if you’d sign it for me.’

She stared at it, frozen to the spot. ‘Where did you get that?’ Then she relented. ‘Sorry. Of course I’ll sign it. Come in. It’s just that it’s not in the shops yet.’ She grabbed his arm and drew him inside the room. ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you, Steve.’

Before he had a chance to reply she had gestured him towards the rocking chair as she went to hunt for a pen on her desk. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that Hugh was writing about Venutios?’

Steve frowned. ‘I had no idea that he was.’

She turned to face him, pen in hand. ‘Are you sure?’